Syrinx
by frozen-delight
Summary: Sherlock is behaving strangely, more strangely than usual, that is. John has an idea as to why. But it's never wise to theorise before you have all the facts… Pining, Unrequited love, Misunderstandings, Kissing for a case. Sherlock/Mycroft, Sherlock/John one-sided relationship. John-centric story, warnings for non-graphic incest.


Definitely not Season 3 compliant. Inspired by Debussy's piece for solo flute of the same name, which you can listen to here. Contains all kinds of references to stuff I love, among other things a very obvious bow to stardust_made's The Poster Girl and a somewhat more obscure allusion to one of dioscureantwins' delicious Holmescest fics – which of course I can only encourage everybody to check out in case you haven't already read them.

Many, many thanks to my fantastic beta canonisrelative for all her invaluable help, advice and encouragement. Her input made this story much, much better than it was originally. All remaining mistakes are mine of course.

This is a gift fic for the wonderful dioscureantwins who's not only an author whom I admire very much, but who's also been a great friend and an amazingly supportive reader of all my stories, for which I can't thank her enough.

* * *

_Some have it, some don't_, John thought. He was contemplating the ad for next month's concerts at the Barbican that decorated one of the pages of this morning's edition of The Daily Telegraph.

_It_, in this case, being the _je-ne-sais-quoi_ which made certain people irresistible. Nestled in the splashy advert was a small but catchy picture of the flutist Sherlock liked so much, a darling of fortune who'd been blessed with more than just the average dose of charm and sex appeal. And apparently talent, too. He was coming to give a concert, a night of French music.

John wasn't all that well acquainted with the classical music scene, but if the covers of the CDs Sherlock owned were anything to go by, this flutist guy had to be a big hit – he had fine, decidedly French features, a sophisticated, cosmopolitan air and a shiny, golden instrument which he directed at the onlooker in a variation of blatantly phallic poses.

Coming across one of those glossy album photos for the first time, John had teased his flatmate about it. Pale red spots appeared on Sherlock's cheeks as he launched into a lengthy deduction of why one of the Mozart flute concertos recorded on the album couldn't have been composed during his stop in Mannheim on the way to Paris, as was commonly believed, but must already have been completed in Salzburg because of the oboists in that particular orchestra being able to switch to the flutes as the middle movement of the concerto demanded or something.

After being briefly gobsmacked that Sherlock managed to go into full deductive mode over a piece of music that was over 200 years old just as easily as when he was bent over a fresh corpse, John made a short deduction of his own: It was not improbable that Sherlock had a little crush on that smart-looking flutist.

In general, John liked to think that Sherlock was above all that. But it amused him to imagine how his friend dabbled in the concerns of ordinary mortals, just a little, when exposed to the suggestive charm of the smart flutist and his instrument. After all, it was utterly harmless. Nothing would ever come of it.

Maybe he should get tickets and take Sherlock to the concert, John thought, still staring at the ad in question. Sherlock would love it. And John would love to see Sherlock happy. Ever since Sherlock had come back, John couldn't seem to get enough of his spontaneous little smiles. Seeing his favourite flutist live on stage was bound to cajole one out of him.

Speaking of Sherlock and his all too ethereal smiles – where was the man? He seemed to have been out all night.

John folded up the morning paper and looked around. His eyes fell on the cup of coffee sitting on the opposite side of the table. He'd made it for Sherlock. It was probably cold by now. John was just debating if he should pour it away when he heard his flatmate's brisk steps on the stairs. A second later Sherlock swept into the room, a dazzling swirl of colour and movement in the bright morning light.

In a quick stride he crossed the room and took a sip from the cup of coffee John had been staring at up till then.

'Good morning to you too,' John smiled up at him. 'Coffee might be a bit cold now.'

'It's fine,' Sherlock said and grinned.

'You've been out all night?' John asked.

Sherlock nodded, his perky grin deepening.

John decided it would be for the best not to inquire exactly what his flatmate had been up to. Considering what a chipper mood he seemed to be in, it couldn't possibly have been anything less sensational and disgusting than cutting up cadavers in the morgue.

'You hungry?' he asked instead.

'Starving.'

John went into the kitchen to prepare a piece of toast for his friend. Ever since Sherlock had managed to blow up their previous toaster, John wasn't letting him anywhere near the new model, even if that meant more chores for him. Not that he hadn't already been acting as Sherlock's 24/7 nanny, nurse and housewife anyway.

But, honestly, who was he kidding? If he'd ever minded that, he would have moved out ages ago. And he certainly wouldn't have moved back in as soon as Sherlock came back. _Back_ from taking down Moriarty's web, in his own words. _Back_ from the dead, in John's.

While he was bent over the toaster, John heard Sherlock's phone ping. He poked his head into the living room, thinking it might be a new case.

Sherlock was standing by the window behind his armchair, the morning light illuminating his silhouette in a brilliant, golden haze that made John feel disoriented and dizzy. He had to steady himself with a hand on the doorframe and blink twice before his eyes and knees adjusted to the scene laid out in front of them: Seemingly heedless of John's gaze, the detective was staring intently at his phone screen, a broad smirk on his face, half-hidden from John's view. But he didn't jump up and rush down the stairs. He merely typed back a reply and then returned to his previous occupation of looking perfectly fetching framed by the window and the morning sun, one hand absentmindedly caressing his phone.

'Mycroft's working on a new anti-terrorism bill,' Sherlock announced abruptly, as though that were enough cause for a general outbreak of cheers.

Shaking his head fondly at the absurd workings of his friend's mind, John shuffled back into the kitchen. He really would get tickets for that concert, he decided.

The toaster dinged.

_ooOoo_

Several days after that remarkable morning, John began to notice that his friend was behaving very strangely. Strangely by Sherlockian standards, mind.

Sherlock had taken to spending the nights away from the flat and when he returned the next morning, he was always in an exceptionally good mood. So good, in fact, that he behaved almost genially around both clients and Scotland Yard officers, no longer exhibiting the need to insult everyone within a vicinity of two miles from the crime scene.

If that hadn't already been too much of a good thing, he once greeted Molly with an exuberant kiss on the cheek for no particular reason at all. On another occasion, he brought Mrs Hudson flowers simply because their latest case had taken them to a florist's. He even remembered to buy the milk. Twice.

To top all the madness, he frequently checked his phone on which he seemed to receive a steady stream of text messages. From what John could perceive they were in no way related to potential or actual cases. Nonetheless, Sherlock greeted most of them with a small smirk. He didn't even ignore the alert when he was on a case.

John watched it all with amazement. Suddenly, there was a lot more smiling than he'd ever hoped to coerce out of his taciturn friend in the course of a day.

Somewhere deep inside, it scared him.

_ooOoo_

All too soon, John's subliminal worries came to a head.

In Kensington, a man had been shot in his bedroom, which was locked from the inside. However, for once, the police and Sherlock Holmes agreed on the crucial fact that this death had been murder, not an act of suicide.

Strangely enough, even though he'd declared the crime to be 'most interesting', his lips quivering appreciatively as he did so, Sherlock didn't focus solely on the puzzle in front of him. Every time his text message alert chimed through the room, he took out his phone and typed back a quick answer, grinning as he did so.

So invested was he in his mobile correspondence that he almost missed how Anderson lifted the clock from the victim's nightstand to search it for fingerprints. Sherlock looked up and Anderson froze in mid-action, the clock trembling in his hands. John felt his shoulders tense. Sherlock was going to tear Anderson to shreds for ruining 'his' crime scene, that much was certain.

'Put that right back,' Sherlock snapped and knelt down to examine the carpet through his magnifier. 'Ah,' he purred in satisfaction. 'See those marks from his chair dragging backwards across the carpet? The neighbour did it. Kill shot through the tilted window.'

Without waiting for an outbreak of admiration from his open-mouthed audience, Sherlock sauntered out of the room, accompanied by a fresh ping from his phone.

John gaped after him. He couldn't believe what he'd just witnessed. He turned around, intending to share an incredulous grin with Lestrade, only to find that the grey-haired detective inspector was watching Sherlock's disappearing back through narrowed eyes, his expression a mixture of thoughtful, worried and extremely alert.

At the sight of it, John felt his own vague fears surface, taking on the most unwelcome shape of the syringes that he'd recently found in the kitchen sink. At the time, he'd tried to explain them away to himself as the leftovers of an experiment and hadn't asked about them. But what if they weren't?

Icy dread unfurling in his stomach, John followed his friend.

_ooOoo_

'You want me to test this for possible drug abuse?' Molly asked slowly, her eyes wide, holding up the strand of dark, curly hair John had given her.

John nodded. 'Just in case.'

Upon being confronted with his own buried suspicions in Lestrade's dark look, John had come to realise that a relapse was indeed the most likely explanation for Sherlock's odd behaviour – leaving the house late at night, often after he'd received a text, being glued to his phone even though it had nothing to do with a case, his unnatural elation when he returned…

The problem was this: He couldn't very well ask Sherlock. Not after he'd only recently assured him that he trusted him again; because if Sherlock wasn't using, hearing of John's suspicions would send them straight back into the hellish loop of _'I don't know what to do to make you forgive me.' – 'I told you I've forgiven you.' – 'No, you haven't.' – '…'_ that had marked and poisoned their first months back together after Sherlock's return from the dead.

For a split second, John had thought of contacting Mycroft. However, he suspected that the older Holmes brother would whisk Sherlock straight off to rehab at the first hint that he might be back on drugs. Which would be counterproductive, since John was still ready to give his friend the benefit of doubt. And even if that proved… _superfluous_, he wanted to talk to Sherlock first. Therefore he'd turned to Molly instead.

After her initial surprise Molly did exactly what he requested. Two days later, she invited him over to the lab to discuss the results.

'Nothing,' Molly said, pointing at the computer screen in front of her. 'He's clean.'

John felt almost faint with relief. 'Thank God,' he breathed.

Molly frowned. 'But why ever did you think he'd started using again in the first place?' she asked.

John huffed out a laugh. 'Don't you think he's been acting strange these last couple of days? Not like himself? Being sharper, quicker, kinder? _Happier_?'

'Oh. _That_,' Molly said and blushed. She gave John an awkward, almost apologetic little smile and quickly averted her gaze to the computer screen in front of her. 'I think he's in love, John.'

_ooOoo_

Molly was right, of course.

Sherlock Holmes was dating for the first time in his life and because he never did anything by halves, he did it extremely intensely; animated smiles, pining looks at his phone, a wild whirr of butterflies in the belly and all that. And like any love-crazed teenager Sherlock pulled off the trick of pretending to keep it all a big secret while simultaneously inflicting his somewhat sickening levels of happiness on the entire world.

Which was why John still had no idea who the person was that had inspired all this frenzy. Despite the Irene Adler fiasco, he'd always assumed that if Sherlock were ever to date, he'd go out with men rather than women. And now something told him that Sherlock's mystery lover was indeed a man. But beyond that, John had no clue as to who he was.

Most of the time, he and Sherlock were pretty much joined at the hip so he knew that Sherlock hadn't met any interesting clients recently. Then who?

One possibility was the new DI of the break-in division. Hopkins. Sherlock had worked a case with him while John was away for the weekend visiting Mike Stamford in Dublin. John knew that Sherlock had deemed the case remarkably clever. He was also well enough acquainted with Sherlock's idiosyncrasies to realise that the lack of a verbose rant about Hopkins' imbecility must be considered as a strong expression of respect for the DI's mental faculties. Likewise, he recalled Lestrade remarking how the new DI was a nice enough guy, but way too smart for him. John guessed that Lestrade hadn't only been referring to his head.

The other possibility was Sherlock's university friend Victor Trevor. Until recently, John had always assumed that he'd been Sherlock's first friend ever. By accident, however, he'd discovered the picture of Victor Trevor, half-concealed at the back of a shelf in Sherlock's bedroom. Apart from the snapshot of Sherlock and Mycroft as children, it was the only photograph on display in Sherlock's room. With only a little prompting from John, Sherlock readily recounted how they'd become friends during his first term at Cambridge and how they'd gradually grown apart during his third year there. Curiously enough, a fortnight later Sherlock told John that Victor Trevor had gotten in touch with him again. But John never found out if Sherlock had actually met up with him or not.

Whoever it was that Sherlock had fallen for, he didn't care to share that piece of information with John. And John felt strangely reluctant to ask.

_ooOoo_

'Huh, if we'd known a couple of shags would cheer him up so, we could all have offered,' Lestrade muttered under his breath, watching Sherlock dance around the latest crime scene.

Sherlock's text message alert chimed through the room.

John cleared his throat which suddenly seemed uncomfortably tight. 'Yeah,' he wheezed out, trying to grin like this was a brilliant joke. 'Yeah.'

The thing was: John _had_ offered, more or less overtly, back at the beginning. And Sherlock had declined.

But now he'd obviously met Prince Fucking Charming, Sherlock was typing away on his phone, taking his mysterious correspondent through his deductions the way he'd used to do it with John – minus all the texting and smiling, that was. It was bloody depressing.

Tearing his eyes away from the consulting detective, Lestrade shook his head and gave John's shoulder a quick squeeze. 'You want to come along for a pint later? It's Arsenal against ManU.'

Of course Lestrade knew. Everybody knew, it seemed.

There was only one ridiculously embarrassing fact John had successfully concealed from the rest of the world's prying eyes so far: Stashed away in John's night table were two tickets for an evening of French flute music at the Barbican, procured at a moment when John hadn't been aware yet of the latest developments in his flatmate's previously non-existent love life.

Of course John knew that he could still ask Sherlock to accompany him. Sherlock would still love it. They'd done lots of things together, _as friends_. Technically, there was no reason they couldn't still spend an evening together just as friends. Except it all felt a bit weird now Sherlock was dating someone else.

_ooOoo_

Several times, John contemplated just talking to Sherlock and asking him straight out who he was seeing, but he couldn't work up the courage to do so. He always postponed the conversation and instead stuck to simply watching Sherlock whirl around the flat, blazing with positively childlike joy.

The love-struck detective continued to be exceptionally sweet – to Molly, to Mrs Hudson, to John… For instance, he took to inviting John out to lunch simply because Mycroft had apparently finally raised his allowance. At other times, in a sudden bout of generosity, he would share the odd childhood memory with him, such as the story of his first love (as John liked to call it in his head to spite Sherlock's mystery boyfriend), namely the tale of Sherlock's dearly beloved puppy.

Hearing Sherlock talk about his puppy, John wondered what predominated in his friend's fond remembrance of the pet: the fact that in what had undoubtedly been a terribly lonely childhood, it was the only creature to provide him with affection outside of his big brother, or the fact that the dog had always preferred little Sherlock to Mycroft.

'We should get a dog,' Sherlock's content baritone broke through John's musings.

'You mean you and me?' John clarified.

'Yes, of course, who else? Mycroft hates animals,' Sherlock said, carefully avoiding the elephant in the room.

John felt too tired to call him out on it and to point out that their present living arrangements wouldn't persist forever, not with Sherlock's startlingly changed prospects. 'I don't think that's a good idea right now,' was all he said.

'Can I ask you again five years from now, then?' Sherlock asked him with a hopeful smile.

John had never known his heart could feel so heavy and light all at once.

_ooOoo_

One morning, Sherlock was busy doing some experiment or other in the kitchen when his phone chimed.

'John?' he called out. 'Check that for me, will you?'

John had probably never been more willing to play Sherlock's secretary – there was a good chance that this was another of those messages from his mystery boyfriend that always made Sherlock smile so.

However, no such good luck. It turned out to be a text from Mycroft.

'It's a text from your brother,' he told Sherlock. 'It says: _Meeting with French Ambassador later tonight. IHNB. Dinner at six?_'

'Tell him six is fine,' Sherlock answered instead of the grumbling, swearing and shouting John would have expected. Being in love really seemed to have made him incredibly mild.

'What does IHNB mean?'

'_It hath no bottom_, one of Mycroft's favourite quotations. Means the prime minister's being an ass again.'

'You and Mycroft use code when you text each other?'

'Of course we do. It would be unforgivably stupid not to, what with Mycroft's position and all these absurd political conventions. Are you done?'

John had barely pressed 'send' when an answer from Mycroft lit up on the display.

'_Remember the dresscode_,' he read out, wondering how the hell Sherlock could ever be anything other than immaculately dressed. Mycroft was such a sorry bastard. John felt keen sympathy for his friend who'd have to endure the obnoxious man through a whole dinner at some posh place or other.

'Text him back: F-Y-E-O,' Sherlock said with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that convinced John not to inquire what the abbreviation was supposed to mean. He was betting any money on it translating into something starting with _Fuck You_. Well, it served Mycroft right for being such a pest.

With great relish John typed out the letters Sherlock had dictated and hit the 'send' button.

However, despite John's premonitions and the coded insults that might have been traded beforehand via text messages, Sherlock's dinner with Mycroft turned out to be a big success. The next day, they had an immensely intriguing new case involving an MP's missing dog and a dead MI5 agent.

_ooOoo_

'It's strange, seeing him so – so –' Lestrade ventured amidst the general cheers as Schurrle turned in his third goal.

'Ridiculously happy?' Molly suggested, taking a sip from her Strawberry Daiquiri and doing a pretty good impression of ridiculously happy herself as she smiled up at the DI.

'I never thought that he was the type –' Lestrade continued and Molly nodded her agreement. 'Neither did I.'

'A hat trick in just seventeen minutes,' John said, keeping his eyes trained on the screen so that he wouldn't have to see Molly's sympathetic eyes. Nor the hardly subtle way her foot nudged Lestrade's to convey to him that they ought to change the direction their conversation had taken. 'That's cool.'

'Bad luck for the Gunners, though,' Lestrade said, sloshing around his beer as he placed it back on the counter with a clank that seemed to protest against much more than just the screaming injustice of why Chelsea had suddenly gotten lucky thrice, while Arsenal had yet to score for the first time. 'Poor boys.'

_ooOoo_

John was getting thoroughly sick of Mrs Hudson's worried inquiries if he was feeling okay, of Molly's sympathetic smiles and of Lestrade's good-natured offers to come along to the pub. However, when he met Mycroft Holmes on the stairs leading up to their flat in Baker Street one afternoon, he realised that he would rather take all of his friends' compassionate glances and gestures than the dark looks thrown at him by the man who secretly was the British Government.

Not even when muzzles had been directed at him in Afghanistan with the obvious intent of putting holes in him had John felt as threatened as he did now. So scorching was the glare Mycroft directed at him that John was almost surprised to find that he was still breathing once Mycroft had descended to the bottom of the stairs and shut the front door behind him.

Apprehensively, John entered the living room, expecting it to be a zone of complete disaster. However, the room was entirely intact, no traces of epic brotherly battles anywhere, and Sherlock, standing in the middle of it, looked positively cheerful. Involuntarily, John thought that Sherlock's new boyfriend must be amazingly good in bed if he managed to put him in such an excellent mood that he even tolerated his brother's visits with good humour.

Several exquisite looking bags of shopping had been placed on the coffee table.

'Mycroft took me shopping,' Sherlock explained, following the direction of John's gaze.

John knew that Mycroft provided Sherlock's wardrobe, but that Sherlock accompanied him for the shopping was a first. Intrigued, John snuck a peek into one of the bags. His eyes encountered something that couldn't be anything other than a very fine shirt – in the boldest pink imaginable.

He stared at Sherlock. 'That's…_pink_,' he stammered.

'Hot pink,' Sherlock corrected him immediately.

John felt his throat constrict. _Hot_ pink indeed. He already knew that Sherlock was going to look forbiddingly hot when he wore it. So hot that one would want nothing more than to rip it right off him and to push him down and –

His head began to swim under the combined onslaught of illicitly seductive mental images and unexpected, nay, _unheard-of_ proceedings: Sherlock had gone shopping. And bought a hot pink shirt. He was trying to impress, that was for sure. Christ!

Feeling Sherlock's expectant gaze burning on his face, John grumbled, trying hard not to blush, 'It's… it's nice.'

'What's wrong, John?' Sherlock began to question him. 'Don't you like it? Do you think it won't suit me? Should I rather have –'

'No, it's… perfectly fine. I'm just a bit shaken…'

'Shaken?'

'I… ah… I just met your brother on the staircase. Pretty frightening. He looked at me like he wanted me dead.'

'Yes,' Sherlock replied. 'He does.'

Once he'd digested the fact that Sherlock wasn't joking, it occurred to John that if there was anyone who would know about the concert tickets hidden away in John's night table, it would be Big Brother impersonated. So maybe – maybe Mycroft Holmes operated under the mistaken belief that Sherlock's new love interest was none other than John.

_ooOoo_

After this startling realisation John made a point of sniffing at his tea before he drank it and avoiding all sleek black cars when he did his shopping. Other than that, life went on as usual. The new usual. Blissful smiles and sweet gestures from Sherlock and far too many text message alerts for John's liking.

It was The Woman all over again. John grew to resent Sherlock's normal text alert noise just as much as he'd previously loathed the ever-present orgasmic moan.

The only time he was pleased to hear it, if only for a short while, was when they were trying to clear up a jewellery theft together with DI Hopkins. Hopkins turned out to be just as smart as Lestrade had described him, but clearly not smart enough to impress the great Sherlock Holmes, because the insufferable text messages still arrived non-stop as they were working together.

Now that he had the audible confirmation that Sherlock wasn't dating Hopkins, John immediately came to the conclusion that it had been stupid of him to ever consider the DI in the first place. After all, he knew Sherlock, knew how withdrawn he was, knew how difficult he found it to relate to other people. Would he, at thirty-five-years of age, having no previous romantic experiences to draw on and many unpleasant memories of people ostracising him for what he was, have thrown himself at a complete stranger? Of course not. It was much more likely that he'd fall for someone who he already knew and trusted. Such as Victor Trevor.

John crossed Hopkins off his mental list and returned to hating the continuous pinging of Sherlock's phone.

Fortunately, some deity or other seemed to take pity on his distress and things gradually began to change. On the whole, Sherlock was still being ridiculously happy in a way that simultaneously touched, frightened and pained John. But he no longer consulted his phone at the crime scenes after that one particular instance where he checked his latest text message, whatever he read there causing his eyes flare up in anger and making him mutter darkly, 'I was working on that one just now.' Then he barked at Lestrade, 'Arrest the uncle!' and marched out of the room. The rest of the day he spent curled in on himself on the sofa at 221B, his bad mood positively seeping through the extrovert tapestry.

The next day his bad temper had passed, but from then on his mystery lover had served his time as a sounding board for discussing cases. Instead, Sherlock now preferred to bounce his ideas off John like he'd done before and his face lit up in honest pleasure every time John said 'Fantastic.'

After a while, there were no more text alerts during their cases. John would be lying if he said that he missed them.

_ooOoo_

Further discordances followed the crime scene incident hot on the heels, documented in the decrease of Sherlock's happy smiles.

Soon enough, a serious rupture seemed to have taken place between the detective and his mystery lover. As a result, Sherlock drenched Lestrade and his team in a steady stream of insults that were exceptionally creative even by his own former high standards, he snapped at John from morning till night and he reduced Mrs Hudson to tears when she offered him a cup of tea.

John resorted to the tactics he'd previously employed during Sherlock's black moods: He'd spend most of the day away from the flat and only return there to sleep; when he couldn't escape from their living confinements for some reason or other, he'd always have some beer in the fridge to provide calm and comfort and he'd turn up the TV volume to drown out Sherlock's noisy sulking. During the nights, he'd resort to earplugs to block out his flatmate's melancholic violin playing.

Two days into Sherlock's latest spleen, John was curled up in front of the TV watching a Doctor Who rerun when Sherlock suddenly sat down beside him, commenting on the improbability of what was happening on screen in his usual scathing tones. John was so glad to see the first signs of his flatmate's latest sulking fit having blown over that he immediately joined into the banter.

With ridiculing everything that happened, the episode passed very quickly. Afterwards, Sherlock suggested that they watch something else. John was beginning to suspect that Sherlock was working up to asking him something, so he acquiesced. After zapping around a bit, they ended up watching the Oscar Wilde biopic starring Stephen Fry, half of which John had already seen before on a visit to Harry and Clara, some six or so years ago, and most of which Sherlock claimed was historically inaccurate. Still, that stopped neither of them from enjoying it.

Once that movie too was over, John turned off the TV, but remained where he was. They sat in the dark living room for what might have been half an hour or more before Sherlock finally broke the silence. 'What do you do when you've upset someone?'

'We're not talking about Mrs Hudson now, are we?' John asked softly.

'No.'

'You still owe her an apology, though, and a large bunch of flowers.'

'Yes, John. – So what do I do?'

'Say you're sorry. Buy a gift.'

'A gift? But he's already got everything. And he'd only mock my poor taste.'

Of course, John reflected with a slightly bitter taste in his mouth, when Sherlock had a boyfriend, he did it properly: Apparently, he was dating the classiest person on the planet. Who else would dare to mock Sherlock's impeccable taste? John thought of evenings spend at the theatre or the opera, of spectacular dinners and polished conversations, of a dashing man in a bespoke suit, maybe similar to the handsome flutist Sherlock liked so much, someone who swept his friend right off his feet with his culture, taste and good looks… none of which John could ever have offered Sherlock himself.

All he had were two concert tickets hidden away somewhere in his night table like a dirty little secret.

_ooOoo_

'And? Did it work?' John asked Sherlock the next day, after the latter had, at John's vehement insistence, apologised lengthily to Mrs Hudson, and then followed John's advice on how to reconcile his boyfriend to the letter.

'No.'

'What?' John couldn't believe what he was hearing.

'He could tell that I'd been talking to you, from what I said and did. He said there was no reason to discuss things with you.' Miserably, Sherlock hung his head.

John tried to comfort his friend the best he could. At the same time he wondered silently if it ought to worry him that not only was Sherlock's boyfriend clearly a complete tit, but he also seemed to know a lot more about John than John did about him.

_ooOoo_

After Sherlock's failed attempt to make things up to his boyfriend, he didn't subject his fellow human beings to another round of nastiness, but he moped around the flat like a little lost boy whose puppy had been beaten to death right before his eyes. Seeing his friend so dejected distracted and pained John in more ways than one.

Eventually, Anthea appeared in Baker Street like a benevolent goddess of peace and justice and that seemed to resolve whatever lovers' tiff had previously existed. Maybe she'd personally threatened Sherlock's boyfriend into forgiving whatever petty offence Sherlock had caused him, thus succeeding where Sherlock's contrition and John's good advice had failed. Who knew? She and Mycroft were capable of anything.

John came home just as Anthea was leaving. In the living room behind her Sherlock was playing a merry tune on his violin which immediately alerted John to the fact that Mycroft's PA must have worked a miracle. Her eyes were locked onto her Blackberry and she was typing away on it, not heeding where she was going, so that she bumped right into John as they both tried to pass through the door at the same time.

Completely unperturbed, neither bothering to apologise nor to give a start at their sudden collision, Anthea looked up at him with her usual slightly pitying Mona Lisa smile, as though she knew a hundred secrets that John wasn't privy to. Which, considering, was probably true.

This time, though, John barely managed to restrain from sending a pitying smile right back at her. Because if running to and fro between Sherlock and his boyfriend every time they had a misunderstanding was now officially part of her job description, she really wasn't paid enough.

Chuckling to himself, he sat down in his armchair and listened to Sherlock's playing.

_ooOoo_

Further quarrels and visits from Anthea followed. John was beginning to grow heartily sick of the quick mood swings and the sorrowful airs Sherlock coaxed out of his instrument. Especially since every single time he couldn't stop himself from hoping that this would be the last argument, that this time, Sherlock and his boyfriend would break up for real and the whole hubbub would be over, once and for all.

'He doesn't take me seriously,' Sherlock complained one time. 'Never will. He treats me just like a child.'

John didn't say anything and waited for Sherlock to elucidate. As tempting as it might be, he certainly wouldn't do anything to further the rift between Sherlock and his partner.

'When I was little, Mycroft seemed so much, much older,' Sherlock suddenly said. 'He seemed to know everything. And he was _everything_… But I'm not that child anymore.'

Sherlock's voice trailed off, leaving John to make sense of what he'd said. John squirmed uncomfortably. Effectively, Sherlock had just compared the troubles of his love life to the relationship he and Mycroft had had as children. No, more than that, he'd talked about them as if they were one and the same thing. Honestly, John's therapist would have had a field day if she'd been present to hear this Freudian transition. John was having a field day himself. He might not be a trained psychologist, but, for crying out loud, he was able to make a leap or two by himself.

Fuck Mycroft and fuck those distant parents and fuck that whole fucked-up childhood which now made it impossible for Sherlock to conduct a normal, healthy relationship! Because that's what it was and John could now see it as plain as day: In dealing with his boyfriend Sherlock was constantly regressing to patterns of behaviour that he'd adopted as a child, when Mycroft had been his parent, teacher, model and only companion.

No doubt Mycroft had tried to do his best, but of course part of him would have enjoyed dominating Sherlock, probably still did, too, bloody power complex and all. As a logical consequence of always being treated like a child, Sherlock had no idea how to behave like a proper grown-up. John still remembered several instances from the beginning of their friendship where his flatmate had been all round-eyed wonder whenever John stated that certain things were Sherlock's business and only his to decide, as though he couldn't quite believe that John respected him as a person of his own.

It had often made John want to strangle Mycroft, but never so much as now.

Whatever it was his boyfriend did that upset him so, it didn't stop Sherlock from wishing to reconcile with him every fucking time. John really wasn't an advocate of ending a relationship as soon as the first argument appeared on the horizon, never mind that this was exactly what had happened to him in his somewhat ill-fated attempts to fit a girlfriend into his life at 221B, but Sherlock's desperate need to patch things up struck him as almost pathological: No matter that the first lurid bloom of bliss had withered away, Sherlock held on to the relationship with all his might, like a little boy who was clutching the back of his mother's skirt and scared to let go, lest she disappeared.

John was perceptive enough to realise that his assessment might be distorted, since he had every reason to think badly of Sherlock's relationship. So he tried not to overrate the alarming conclusions he'd come to. However, his negative perception of Sherlock's relationship was soon reinforced when he saw Lestrade and Molly exchange worried glances whose subject for once wasn't John and his damn broken heart.

'It's like he's never learned how to argue,' he overheard Molly say. 'He's acting like the whole world's ending.'

'Yeah, well, we always knew he was the dramatic sort, didn't we,' Lestrade replied.

'But it's more than that,' Molly insisted with her usual quiet perspicacity. 'There's these moments where he's playing the boy wonder and you just want to hug him or smack him and tell him to grow the hell up – mostly the latter. Definitely the latter. But he's not acting now, I can tell. Greg, he really is a child in these matters.'

_ooOoo_

Strike that – Sherlock was a child in most matters. A nosy, impertinent, insufferable child that definitely needed a good smacking, John decided when Sherlock asked him out of the blue, 'John, what are these?', holding up two innocuous looking concert tickets.

'You – you've been going through my room? Again? After what I told you? Repeatedly, Sherlock, repeatedly?' John demanded furiously, the blood roaring in his ears as he ripped the tickets out of Sherlock's hands.

'I needed your gun for an experiment and you'd gone out.'

'And so you just went through the contents of my night table.'

'Naturally,' Sherlock shrugged. 'You don't mind?'

'Sherlock,' John said warningly.

'What? What did I do wrong this time?'

John felt seriously tempted to slam his fists right into Sherlock's mien of childlike innocence. 'Have you never listened when I've talked about privacy?'

'Privacy? Your night table's pretence at privacy was insulting.'

'Because it wasn't locked?'

'Yes. See?'

'That's not the point.'

'Then what's the point?'

'This was supposed to be a surprise – and now you've spoilt it.'

'A surprise?' Sherlock beamed, his face radiating with childlike pleasure. 'For me? Were you going to take me to the concert, John?'

'There's no reason why I can't still take you,' John said slowly, his anger melting away at the sight of Sherlock's glowing look. Damn the sweet bastard and his sweet smiles. He knew how to play John like a fiddle. But, John assumed, counting his losses, as long as Sherlock didn't find out why John hadn't mentioned the concert to him before, all would be well.

Except that Sherlock didn't look like all would be well. 'John, this is… very kind of you,' he said hesitantly, biting his lip. 'I'd love to go, but maybe it's not a good idea.'

John's heart clenched uncomfortably. 'Because of your –?'

'He wants me to move out. He's hardly going to be pleased if I accompany you to a concert.'

'Seriously? He's jealous? Of me? But that's ridiculous.'

'Of course it is,' Sherlock agreed readily and what was left of John's poor, malnourished heart collapsed to his feet with a dull thud and cracked upon landing.

Sherlock noticed none of this, of course. He threw another wistful glance at the concert tickets in John's hands and pouted, spoilt child that he was, as though he were the only one ever being denied a pleasure. 'He's playing Syrinx. I would so like to hear it.'

'Syrinx?'

'It's a piece for solo flute by Debussy. Based on the myth of Pan and his love for the nymph Syrinx. One could say that it's one of the shortest, most intense celebrations of unrequited love in the history of music.'

'So I'm taking it that nymph didn't love Pan back?' John asked, making a mental note to look up that piece on YouTube. It wasn't all that improbable that this was one of the haunting tunes which disrupted his sleep every time Sherlock and his mystery boyfriend had an argument.

'No. But he wouldn't take no for an answer, so she ran away from him. When she prayed for assistance on her flight, she was transformed into reed, making it impossible for Pan to find her. However, when he arrived on the scene, he cut off the reed and used it as a flute to give expression to his love for Syrinx. Which through this action ironically both became immortal and impossible ever to fulfil,' Sherlock commented drily.

'Ah, I guess that's why the panpipes are called panpipes?'

'How astute, John,' Sherlock sneered. 'All kinds of common knowledge may be found in the classics.'

'Speaking of the classics, the moral of that story sounds an awful lot like: _For each man kills the thing he loves_.'

Sherlock scoffed. 'We really shouldn't have watched that Wilde movie together.' As he spoke, his face turned grave and the sentence, starting out as a joke, transformed into a cold, hard fact.

And just like that, John knew that they wouldn't go to the concert.

_ooOoo_

Bad luck seemed to be synonymous with 'John Watson' these days, so of course, _of course_, John happened to be caught up in a torrential downpour when he was queuing in front of the ticket office to give back the two ill-fated tickets he'd bought. He hadn't thought to bring an umbrella, although that never was a wise move in London's treacherous spring weather, and after being soaked through and shivering for what felt like hours, even if it probably was no more than thirty minutes, he'd successfully returned the tickets and contracted a cold.

John really hated being sick. As a doctor, he liked taking care of others, but having to take care of himself annoyed him to no end. He could have kicked himself for forgetting his umbrella, especially since Sherlock was working on a really interesting case right now, a smuggling ring who disguised their activities by employing red-heads only in a non-profit organisation that was little more than a letterbox company, and John was unable to help him with anything. He was slow in the head, slow on his feet, often even too slow to encourage Sherlock's thought processes with a well-timed exclamation of 'Brilliant!'

He hated feeling so useless.

Therefore, it could hardly come as a surprise that when Sherlock concocted a plan together with Lestrade to place himself outside the headquarters of the smuggling ring in order to record their plotting inside on a special device of Scotland Yard's, John needed very little persuasion from Sherlock to accompany him although he still felt rather poorly.

He took horrendous amounts of cough syrup to ensure that he wouldn't erupt into a violent coughing fit and thereby give them away to the gang they were trying to spy on, and then he hastily followed Sherlock out of the flat, into the cab and away to the shady area in Lambeth where the smugglers were hiding away in a run-down brick building.

With the equipment Lestrade had given them it was child's play to listen in on the smugglers and to record their conversation. Soon they'd collected enough evidence to warrant an arrest. Sherlock pocketed the equipment and said, sounding almost disappointed, 'Well, that was easy.'

Just then, though, things decided to go pear-shaped, because something happened that wasn't supposed to – the door to the building suddenly opened. They were caught.

Sherlock did a quick double glance at John, then he pushed him right into the brick wall where they were standing, pressed himself against him and covered John's lips with his own.

John had no idea what was happening. One moment, his heart was pounding away in excited fear that they'd been found out, and the next it was hammering a different rhythm altogether, because he was enveloped in a volcanic shock of Sherlock's smell, Sherlock's hands, Sherlock's lips, touching, tearing, taking. Sherlock's lips felt as deliciously plush as they looked, and they were soft and sweet, too, enticingly so.

Christ, John had no hell of a clue what was going on, but he just went with it, stopped wondering, surrendered to the lush sensation of Sherlock everywhere – on his skin, on his tongue, in his nose, in his head… because how could reason ever hold out against this?

And just like that, it was over.

Sherlock stepped back, his withdrawal leaving a lingering ache on John's skin. 'They're gone,' he announced, sounding pleased.

John opened his eyes to stare at his friend. Sherlock's voice had sounded way too normal for the situation they found themselves in. Beholding him, John decided that he also looked way too normal, his face and clothes presenting hardly any evidence of what had just passed between them. Hell, he wasn't even breathing more heavily than usual.

The bastard.

'What – what was that?' John gritted out.

'I just saved your life,' Sherlock said flippantly, sounding as self-satisfied as if he were saying, 'I'm Superman.' Not that Sherlock knew who Superman was, of course. Just like he didn't know anything of real importance. Such as that you didn't start randomly kissing people!

'You kissed me.'

'Really, John, did you knock your head against the wall? How can you be so slow? The smugglers were coming out and you were in no shape to run away from them, hence we needed to divert their attention away from us while staying put. There weren't a lot of options.'

'So you tried to save my life by kissing me?' John clarified, the words _You saved my life by breaking my heart_ catching somewhere at the back of his sore, swollen throat.

'Good you're finally catching u–' Sherlock began and stopped abruptly when something seemed to catch his eye. He glanced quickly up at the rooftop of the building opposite them. All of his cocky 'I'm Superman' attitude drained out of him, leaving behind little more than a wan rag doll. He bit his lip and sighed. Shoving the recording equipment at John, he said, 'You take this to Lestrade. I've got something to do.'

'Sherlock – are you okay?'

'I'll see you at the flat,' was all Sherlock replied, already walking away.

_ooOoo_

The cup of tea John had set out for Sherlock was growing cold and John was trying hard not to worry. He sat in his armchair, nursing his own cup of tea, and stared at the empty chair opposite him. Where was the man? He really ought to be back by now.

John tried to distract himself by reading the paper, but he soon put it down again, because the words kept blurring in front of his eyes as his thoughts trailed back to Sherlock's lips on his own.

A dry laugh escaped his throat. Really, it ought to have been ironic, how Sherlock always succeeded in hurting John the most when he was trying to save him. But John was tired and sick, every limb aching. He was in no mood for irony.

He thought of his short meeting with Lestrade back at the police station, of Lestrade's ready, unspoken sympathy, doing John the favour of only discussing the case even though John knew that he must have looked terrible. Lestrade had repeatedly run his hands though his hair, a strong sign of how worried he was. About both of them. In parting, he'd hesitantly put that in words, words John couldn't seem to get out of his head again, 'John, I think you should know that it would break his heart to lose you.'

Intermingled with memories of Sherlock's lips, the words replayed in his head, over and over, until he finally heard steps on the stairs outside.

But it wasn't Sherlock who entered the room. It was a tall, dark-haired stranger with undeniably handsome features and a shy smile. He faintly reminded John of a certain flutist, but stronger still was his resemblance to the youth on the picture he'd discovered at the back of Sherlock's shelf.

'You're Victor Trevor,' John said in shock.

'And you're John Watson,' Victor Trevor replied. 'May I come in?'

They sat down awkwardly in the two armchairs. An uncomfortable silence followed. John felt no hurry to break it, because in all likelihood Victor Trevor had come here to air himself as the jealous boyfriend and to tell John off for getting kissed by Sherlock. Tough. John wasn't going to make it any easier on him.

After a while, Victor said with the gravitas of a long-time widower, which John felt was completely out of place in the current situation, 'Sherlock doesn't happen to be in, does he?'

'No,' John replied warily.

'I would have liked to see him.'

'Ah. Right.' John cleared his throat and glared at the man sitting opposite. Maybe the man was trying to be sly, trying to confuse John in order to catch him on the wrong foot – but John wasn't going to fall for that. He was intimately acquainted with various attack tactics. After all, he'd been to Afghanistan.

There was more silence. Then Victor said, 'I read your blog, you know.'

'You do?' John asked, not caring if he sounded hostile rather than curious. Damn that man with his handsome features and his cultivated air. Why couldn't he just come out with what he wanted to say? There was really no need to sugar-coat it. John wasn't a precious flower or anything.

Victor Trevor winced. 'Sorry. I'm so sorry for bursting in like that when we've never met before. I'm sorry. I should probably go. It was unwise of me to come in the first place. I was carried away by how envious I felt of you –'

'Why should you feel envious of me?' John interrupted him, glad that they were finally getting there.

'You know, you – and him,' Victor waved his hands between them. 'I never had that chance. Well, I might have had it, long ago, but I was young and rash then and did some stupid things. I can't tell you how sorry I'm about all that. I wish I could tell Sherlock, too.'

'Then why don't you?' John exclaimed, beginning to lose his patience with this whole _Let's try to understand where we're all coming from so we can decide together where we're going_. Victor Trevor had no business to be nice and to try to be fair to everybody involved when John just wanted to hate him.

'Because he won't see me,' Victor replied meanwhile, causing John to look up sharply. 'I contacted him several times in the past weeks, hoping we could meet up, hoping I could make things up to him, but he's never replied.'

'He's never – oh!' John said as the full meaning of Victor Trevor's words registered with him. Sherlock had never met up with Victor Trevor. Sherlock wasn't seeing Victor Trevor. He was seeing someone else. 'He's mentioned that you got in touch,' he added, suddenly feeling a little sympathetic towards his guest. 'Probably he just forgot? We've been very busy.'

'Oh yes, I understand,' Victor hastened to assure him, a shyly hopeful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 'Well, I guess it's not a good time now either. Again, I'm really sorry for bursting in on you like that. Maybe you could just tell him that I came by?'

He rose from his chair. John followed suit. 'I'll tell him to call you.'

'Oh, that's – I really, really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.' Victor gave John's hand several pathetic squeezes until John pulled away for good. 'I'll see myself out, don't bother,' he added, when John made to follow him to the door. 'If you'd just tell him that – yes, thank you.' In the doorway, he looked back. John was prepared to throttle him and push him down the stairs if he began blabbering how grateful he was to John one more time, but instead he said, 'You're a very lucky man, John Watson.'

And with a meaningful last look, Victor Trevor was gone.

John sank back down in his armchair and put his head in his hands. He was having a hard time digesting all that had been said during this short visit. What most bothered him were two things.

First, that most of the people out there apparently still thought that given how close Sherlock and John were, they had to be together. All these assumptions were perfect justifications of John's hopes and dreams, telling him that he hadn't been completely deluded in thinking that it was possible. But what did it matter that the statistics backed him up, when Sherlock simply didn't see the possibility himself, thereby transforming this perfectly sound reasoning into a ludicrous fancy?

Second, more pressingly, while Victor Trevor had been consumed with jealousy of John and vice versa, Sherlock had been seeing someone who was neither Victor nor John. Now that Victor was off the cards, John was left with no clue as to who Sherlock's mystery boyfriend was.

John gulped down the cup of tea he'd made for Sherlock and grimaced. It was already unsavourily cold. Then he leant back in his armchair and waited.

They'd really have to talk this time.

_ooOoo_

'He didn't like it,' Sherlock said quietly on his return to the flat, slumping down in his armchair still very much like the limp rag doll of a man who'd left John in Lambeth.

'That you kissed me?'

'Yes.'

'Understandably,' John rejoined, barely refraining from mentioning that he also didn't like being kissed by someone whom he very much wanted to kiss when that person didn't really mean it like that. Even if it was to save his life. 'Did you explain the context to him?'

'He thinks I should have run and let you die rather than kiss you.'

'Right. – Maybe you shouldn't have told him, then.'

'But, John, he already knew.'

John stared at him, let the sentence sink in, stared. There'd been no one back in the alley, so how could he know? No one but Sherlock, John and maybe the CCTV...oh. Oh God.

'Sherlock, are you… are you by any chance talking about…. about Mycroft?'

Now it was Sherlock's turn to stare. 'Of course I'm ta – you didn't know?'

John shook his head. He took several deep breaths.

Mycroft. All this time it had been Mycroft.

John wondered if he was supposed to feel relieved at the discovery. Not a tall, handsome stranger, but the one person Sherlock was closest to, apart from John. The one person who was Sherlock's equal, who might even be his superior. Who knew even more about him than John did. Who'd always been there, right from day one. The one person John couldn't possibly compete with.

Feeling sick, he realised that he'd projected a need for secrecy onto Sherlock which had never been there. Sherlock had always been honest with him, frequently mentioning Mycroft, mentioning his meetings with him. He'd even let John see some of Mycroft's text messages. But John had been too much of an idiot to see what was right in front of him.

'John, you're – you're not _judging_, are you?' Sherlock's voice cut hesitantly through his wild thoughts, where everything he knew, everything he'd observed rearranged itself in a new, strikingly different order.

Sherlock's question made it obvious that he'd always assumed that John would take this new piece of information in his stride the same way he'd previously accepted toes and severed heads in the fridge. But John wasn't sure he could do that. Of all the outlandish things life with Sherlock had confronted him with, nothing had prepared him for – for _that_. Now that the first shock of realisation had worn off, everything in his head was screaming _Incest!_ in blinking, capital neon letters. For Sherlock there might be nothing weird about the idea of sleeping with his brother, but in the world John had grown up in this sort of thing simply didn't happen.

He looked at Sherlock, a pale, defeated mess curled up in his armchair. John's heart went out to him.

There were many things that were wrong with Sherlock and Mycroft's relationship, so that, all in all, the fact that Mycroft was Sherlock's brother was probably the least of their worries, John decided. Until he'd be able to wrap his head around that, he'd simply pretend that Mycroft was Sherlock's childhood sweetheart and try to reason on from there.

Oh, and while he was at it, he probably also ought to start pretending that he'd never wanted more from Sherlock than the friendship they had. Unfortunately, that was going to be a whole lot more difficult than ignoring the _other_ aspect. There was nothing surreal or outlandish about the ardent desire he felt. Similarly, there was nothing surreal or outlandish about the fact that it was unrequited; and to see all the pain of loss, the unfulfilled longing, the raging at the cruelty of destiny that John felt reflected on Sherlock's strained face didn't actually make it any better.

John swallowed. 'You love him very much, don't you?'

'What does it matter?' Sherlock bit out, sounding bitter. He slid off his chair and collapsed onto the carpet in a graceless whirl of long limbs and even longer misery. 'He just can't let me live. And I'll never be what he wants.'

'But you're everything anyone could hope for,' John blurted out before he could stop himself.

Sherlock's eyes widened. He looked suddenly very lost. 'John, I never…'

'No, just...just ignore that,' John said hastily. He remembered Lestrade's grave face, his words _It would break his heart to lose you_. He took in Sherlock's sad eyes, his pinched mouth, all of a sudden looking worn and troubled, no longer as soft and sweet as it had been when John had tasted it earlier that day.

Clearly, Sherlock was terrified of losing both people who'd made it into his address book, the two most important people in his life, all in one go. But that didn't have to be, right? Their lives didn't have to be determined and wasted away by tragic passions like those of the ancients. Whatever his own helpless infatuation, John was first and foremost Sherlock's best friend. And if he was a really good friend, he'd make sure that Sherlock got to keep at least one of his two contacts, in the best case both.

'Don't,' John said again, more vehemently this time, seating himself on the floor beside his friend. 'Just ignore all of that.'

Sherlock looked like he might want to argue the point, but he complied.

John sighed and braced himself to tackle the conversation the same way he'd approach talks with Harry when another one of her relationships lay in tatters. 'Have you ever thought that it might all have been a bit too lovey-dovey? Not really like you?'

'John, you realise that when it's your own brother, you've only got one chance to – I wanted to do it right the first time. But it's just like all the times when Mycroft asked me a question when we were young – he knew everything, _everything_, while I never got things a hundred per cent right.'

'He'd probably have grown bored with you if you had. There would have been nothing left for him to teach.'

'What are you trying to tell me with that, John?'

'Has it ever occurred to you that Mycroft might have gotten involved with you because he liked your relationship for what it was, imperfect and hellishly annoying for you – and for everybody else, let me tell you that?'

'Of course, Mycroft can't help but be hellishly annoying.'

John smiled, honestly amused for the first time since he'd found out that Sherlock was seeing someone. 'Yes, but you're still in love with him.'

'So?'

'It might just be possible that you miss arguing with him. Invite him over, have a good shouting match, snipe at his diet and his boring office job… Hmm?'

Sherlock shuffled closer and leant his head on John's shoulder. 'Maybe.'

He took out his phone. John thought he probably ought to avert his eyes, but he didn't. He saw Sherlock type out the message _You're a sleek, fat, lazy, manipulative, paranoid and utterly stupid bastard and I'm only still talking to you because Anthea threatened me with a knighthood. Again. S _John barely had the time to smile at this very Sherlockian version of 'I love you' before his friend hit the 'send' button with great determination.

For a short moment, neither of them said anything. Then there was an unmistakable text alert noise breaking the silence from the other end of the room.

Sherlock jumped to his feet and swirled around. John followed suit.

Briefly, his gaze was arrested by the soft look on his friend's face, something he'd never seen there before. Then his eyes moved over to the entrance. In the shadows he had difficulties making out Mycroft's features, but he fancied that a similarly soft expression was meeting Sherlock's gaze.

'You're a rude, arrogant, ignorant, irresponsible, self-centred brat,' Mycroft drawled. Beneath the customary superciliousness it sounded amused and maybe even a little fond.

Slowly releasing the breath he'd been holding, John glanced sideways at his friend to gauge his reaction to what might conceivably be the standard Holmes' way of flirting. For a moment, Sherlock remained immobile, not even blinking, as though his brother's words hadn't registered with him at all. Then he huffed and took a step forwards.

John had several ideas of what was going to happen next, but there was no need for him to know for sure which one won through. Chances were fifty-fifty that they'd end up in each other's arms or at each other's throats and John would learn soon enough which scenario prevailed. He'd played his part, he'd been a good friend, so he'd definitely more than earned a bit of time to himself; sad, selfish time in which he could silently hope for one result and gradually come to terms with the other. Besides, unlike Sherlock, he did have a basic understanding of the concept of privacy.

Quietly, he crept out of the living room. The door creaked shut behind him like a trusted old friend.

* * *

Thank you for reading. Reviews are warmly appreciated.


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